Few days ago, we could finally manage to get school books to all the kids at the SOS Children’s Village in Rafah; it was really hard at first; because books were not allowed to get into Gaza Strip.

The shelves at the book shops and the printing companies are almost out of printing supplies due to the shortage of supplies that are not coming to the Gaza Strip.

In the streets; there is a state of eagerness and anxiety prevails the street about what will turn out due of the failure of the peace process which was announced by the Palestinian President and his top assistance, also because of the probability of resolving the Palestinian Authority, break up the Cabinet and withdrew from political life, no one knows what will happen in the near future.

Several days ago, a few explosions were heard during the night in the nearby areas from where I live, me and my family as well as the SOS Children’s village, we woke up and were disturbed by the loud bang sound, my daughter “Farah” began to complain of pains in joints as a result of fear and terror from the sound of bombing, which lasted for few minutes.

In the next morning “Farah” woke up tired, but forced herself and decided to go to school and continue her usual.

But at the SOS Children’s Village the picture was more complicated, the children woke up at the sound of bombing; some of them went into a state of shock and many of them shouted too, they all stayed awake until the next morning.

Apparently, the sound of bombing had brought to them the old image of the war on Gaza

All the people in Gaza Strip still have distress regarding the cross points and the troubles of travel, the cross points are still closed, sometimes they open only once every month or two for two or three days at the most, but not many can travel because of the highly compound security actions at the cross points.

“Fatima”; is a young woman of the girls youth’s house at the SOS Children’s Village, she has been trying for several months to travel to her husband at the Egyptian side, which is not far distance from her now only by 20 minutes on foot, but she was unable to travel even with several appeals and attempts, which is now experiencing in a very bad case psychological problem, and has severe situations of fear and that she may not be able to travel completely, and lose her husband for any reason.

These days; in the Gaza Strip, people are getting ready “Eid al-Adha”, which will take place during the next ten days, and this holiday is based on religious rituals, in that day, people slaughter cattle to sacrifice, but because of the siege; it will remain very limited due to widespread poverty among Palestinian families, also due to the lack of cattle in the market.

In general, the situation in the Gaza Strip has not changed since the start of the siege that was set for almost 3 years until now, and people are living in a predicament, there is still a severe shortage of all kinds of supplies in the markets, maybe food is available but the price is double or triple times the regular price, but there are still more than 1500 kind merchandise are still banned from entering the Gaza Strip, and the most important ones are building materials, because the construction segment is totally frozen, people are living in tents because they cannot build or even renovate thousands of destroyed apartments and houses, which it was done by the vicious war on Gaza Strip.
Kamil Elshami
professor-Alaqsa university-Gaza